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A Middle Man Could Bring Smartphones to Millions of Mexicans for the First Time
After two years of intentionally losing money in a very smart way, a Mexican cell phone company is set to change the way the country’s consumers use mobile phones to access the internet. If their plan works, it could transform not only the Mexican phone industry, but consumer finance systems in developing countries around the globe.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Latin America
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Grameen Foundation, KfW and CARE’s Access Africa Fund Invest in World’s First 100% Mobile Microfinance Institution
Grameen Foundation, KfW and CARE's Access Africa Fund announced they have each purchased a 25 percent stake in Musoni Kenya, the first microfinance institution to provide financial services to the poor entirely via mobile phones. Based in Nairobi, Kenya, it provides microloans largely to people who are underserved by the formal financial sector. This investment will help Musoni Kenya grow its operations, deepen its penetration in rural areas where financial inclusion is lowest, and pave the way for it to receive a license to accept savings deposits from the Central Bank of Kenya.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- microfinance
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Owning a mobile phone does not move you to the middle class
James Ogule, who lives in Namugongo, a Kampala surburb, thinks the vendors selling matooke (plantains) by the road to his house should not be considered middle class.The vendors spend more than $2 (sh5,200) a day and Ogule who works with a government regulatory body thinks equating a middle class to sh5,200 a day is a pity.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Genpact to buy VentureEast-backed Atyati Technologies
Business processing outsourcing major Genpact Ltd has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Atyati Technologies, a technology platform provider for the rural banking sector in India. The terms of the transaction, including the stake acquired and the deal value, remain undisclosed. The deal is expected to close in 3-4 weeks.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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New Apps for the Bottom Billion
When it comes to mobile communications, there's still a lot of room for innovation at the bottom. In Bangalore, India, researchers from the University of Toronto and Microsoft are now imagining new business models for the world's poorest phone owners by adapting a little-known protocol that can receive pictures as bitmapped text messages. The technology could readily be used in the roughly 1.5 billion low-end Nokia and Samsung phones in circulation.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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Tech majors HP, Google and Microsoft reach out to local start-ups to gain foothold in SME sector
Large technology companies have a clear target group in mind when they design initiatives to promote entrepreneurship. Start-ups that engage in these programmes are typically led by founders set on building the next big technology service product. But not Vanajakshi Raveendra Lokhande, the owner of a small business that makes pickles and noodles in the north Karnataka district of Bagalkot.
- Categories
- Technology
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Transformational Entrepreneurship: Where Technology Meets Societal Impact
The slow decline of industrial manufacturing in developed nations and recent failures of financial capitalism across the globe have sent us searching for a new model of economic growth. I see the two movements of Technology Entrepreneurship and Social Entrepreneurship beginning to converge into a promising solution.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Technology
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Microplanet Technologies Names Daryl Skoog, Former Head of Opportunity International MIS, as Executive Director
MicroPlanet brings together a world-class team of technology professionals to support microfinance sector
- Source
- Press Release
- Categories
- Education, Technology
- Tags
- microfinance